Only on a Treo 700p and you should not use BTmute on the Treo 700p! It is only developed for the Treo 650.

ERicJ - LauncherX 1.2.22 is causing it - not so LX 1.2.21

There is no evidence LauncherX causes this problem. The current version of LauncherX is 1.2.28. So no one should be using anything earlier than version 1.2.28.

First of all, this SD card problem dates back to the Treo 600!
CradleCare is a utility that makes sure the SD card is mounted. I developed this utility initially for the Treo 600 but is continues to provide value on today's Treos.

How did it come that we were never notified of the problem? Must be a rare case. In case of NVFS probs there was heavy discussion among the developers - the active ones were mostly those who perceived it is a nuissance. (That was for example our case with Resco Backup.) As a result we understand the mechanisms today and can do at least partial measures.

Obviously this is a major issue. Here are some interesting observations of mine as I continue to suffer with this SD problem. None of these have been mentioned in this thread:

1) Is this only seen on a Verizon 700p? My friend has a Sprint model and has never had the issue.
2) I have had Resco backup sets which completed writing to the card and after completion I have verified that the SD will mount correctly. Later when the SD is no longer recognized and I hard reset, the Resco restore of that set comes up with the SD card not visible? This does not happen on all sets.
3) I restored a bad Resco set to a Verizon store model 700p and it rendered the SD reader useless. Had to have the store manager unstrap the phone so it could be hard reset.
4) CradleCare does not really help although it seems to allow the SD to work without the typical mounting noises and in my case eventually fails.
5) Use of the CardInfo app without CradleCare seems to show an invalid card name. With CradleCare if it showed the correct card name then the card could be used.
6) Without CradleCare it seemed to always be some sort of random program crash which resulted in the issue.

I have again recently removed hack type programs from the machine and things again appear normal. For how long I do not know. So far any contact with either Verizon or Palm results in denial and the always lame excuse regarding third party apps or defective SD cards.

I hope some solution is found as it is plainly visible this thread is one of the largest posted and must be a real problem.

Jeff sent me his T700p backup set that did not restore the card and I applied it on a Palm TX. First of all I was not sure at all, whether this can work - but it basically worked: Except the phone-related services all was ok. Including the card, of course. This confirms that the card information is created dynamically and is not a part of the backup.

Then Jeff made additional tests on T700p - again with a backup set that does not restore the card:

Hard reset
Warm reset
Restore

In this moment the card was mounted. However, after the card removel and re-insert, it was not detected. (No sound was played after the card insertion.)

My comment:
This also indicates that the fault is in the installed application set. Just we do not know how for sure how this happens.

One possibility would be this (sorry for the technical terms):

From the palm OS documentation:

The sysNotifyCardInsertedEvent is broadcast when an Expansion Manager card is inserted into a slot. When a new card is inserted, the Expansion Manager attempts to mount the volume on that card and plays a sound (indicating success or failure) once the attempt is complete.

To prevent the Expansion Manager from mounting the volume, set the expHandledVolume bit in the handled field. To prevent the Expansion Manager from playing the sound, set the expHandledSound bit in the handled field.

My comment:

This is a legal way how an app can prevent card recognition. To verify this hypothesis try to detect apps that are registered for these notifications:

sysNotifyCardInsertedEvent (crdi)
sysNotifyCardRemovedEvent (crdo)

The best tool for that is Palm Internals - despite a bit difficult output. If it crashes, then use Resco Explorer > Control Panel > Notifications.

At first I did not realize that this mechanism exists because we always use safer notifications
sysNotifyVolumeMountedEvent
sysNotifyVolumeUnmountedEvent
as these notifications are broadcasted after the card change is completed and they do not give a chance to do any harm.

Obviously this is a major issue. Here are some interesting observations of mine as I continue to suffer with this SD problem. None of these have been mentioned in this thread:

1) Is this only seen on a Verizon 700p? My friend has a Sprint model and has never had the issue.

Iv'e had this problem for months now and am on Sprint.

Originally Posted by steinhorn

2) I have had Resco backup sets which completed writing to the card and after completion I have verified that the SD will mount correctly. Later when the SD is no longer recognized and I hard reset, the Resco restore of that set comes up with the SD card not visible? This does not happen on all sets.

It's a common app that we are all using. It's a matter of identifying it.

Originally Posted by steinhorn

4) CradleCare does not really help although it seems to allow the SD to work without the typical mounting noises and in my case eventually fails.
5) Use of the CardInfo app without CradleCare seems to show an invalid card name. With CradleCare if it showed the correct card name then the card could be used.

CradleCare seems to be the only app that can bring the card back to my Sprint Treo 700p. Yes, no sounds, but it mounts the card again until a reset. I purchased the app, so it would remount after reset. It's livable until another hack comes along or we identify the causing app. I wish CradleCare would come out with a new rev. to add card insertion Beep or help solve the problem.

I personally have not had the mounting issue *yet*, but registered CradleCare anyway because it has quite a few functions that I do like. I suppose if I ever do run across that problem I will be covered

I had this problem on my Verizon 700P using a 2g SD card. Every time Bluetooth crashed the Treo the CD card was gone. I reformatted the SD card using a card reader by going to Computer Mgmt \ Disk Mgmt. I went through each of the format options until I found success by selecting 32k FAT. Four days have passed and no problem with the card. YMMV

I'm new here but have same sd card problem. everyone tries to tell me it is a third party app. so explain this, I'm on my third 700p all had sd card issue. I used my original sd card from my 600, on the first 2. so on the third one I went and imediately bought a new sandisk 2gig card and with a new 700 and brand new sd card I took some pictures went to the pic viewer and just like before the card disappeared. the phone had not been hotsynced and had no third party apps. any ideas

CradleCare will make sure you can always access the data on your SD card. The Treo is notorious for loosing communication with the SD card. This tool will make sure your data is always there and ready to use by all of your utilities.

The KEY here is, WHAT APPLICATION IS CAUSING IT. This is what I have been waiting for so long now.. We all need to join to figure that out.

I bought CradleCare not because I wanted to, but because I had to, to get my TreoSD to work. I have since found that it is a hede HOG. Even only using that unintended feature of it. I'm not saying it's a bad app, just that by now I am expecting a small SINGLE app to do this for this problem. Just build with what the program already 'started' maybe even New Ver?

I have seen several applications cause this problem and I have had users report to me other applications.

I can tell you that one of my applications used to cause this problem and that is BTmute on the Treo 700p. BTmute should NOT be used on the Treo 700p since it was specifically developed for the Treo 650.

I mention this only becuase 3 users have reported this application to me as causing the SD Card to disappear on their system: DateBk6. I have not personally seen this condition. But I have worked with 3 people that had their SD Card disappearing and disabling DateBk6 resolved the problem. The symptom was after every soft reset, the SD Card would disappear.

I hope this helps and I am not pointing fingers at DateBk6 but if others can validate this problem, the developer of DateBk can have a better handle on a fix. I am just presenting a datapoint for others to vaidate or invalidate. DateBk5 was a terrific program and I still enjoy using this program.

I hope this helps and I am not pointing fingers at DateBk6 but if others can validate this problem, the developer of DateBk can have a better handle on a fix. I am just presenting a datapoint for others to vaidate or invalidate. DateBk5 was a terrific program and I still enjoy using this program.

I used DB5 on my 650 and had the card disappearance issue. I don't remember whether DB6 betas became available before or after I got my 700 (5/28/06), but I've been using it since the betas and have had the same card issue. After I bought CradleCare, I no longer lost the card. I've been using DB6 continuously, but roughly a few months ago something caused me to disable CradleCare yet my card has not disappeared. It's still installed, but not enabled.

I'm guessing that if it were DB6 the issue was either solved - any DB6 users still losing their card? - or it was caused by some other app that unfortunately I can't pinpoint. I don't even remember when it occurred or I could check my Archive folder.

i used datbk6 and lost my card during that time, i am not sure if it is that program or not causing the issue, but after installing cradle care i have not lost it, i hear ya on the hede consumption

I have never used datbk and have this problem. In my case, I have so much stuff installed, theres no way to track it. I guess there is, but would take a few days. I think I will start it next week when back from traveling.